Perfect timing, I was just getting to springs. This was a real hard sell for me. Rixthetrick had some pretty good arguments that made me think. Max had some very compelling videos that made me think even more. But thinking has gotten a lot of guys including me in trouble. Only one way to know for sure. Rick was very generous and found me the right springs on eBay for me to check it out.
Not any springs will do. They do need to be sized for the weight of the component. Its kind of like what John is saying above, there's always going to be a resonant frequency and you want it to be very low ideally according to Townshend around 2Hz.
I still was skeptical. It just seems a speaker on springs, when the cone moves one way the whole loudspeaker is going to move the other way, and there goes your dynamics and transients.
But unlike the few others who never acknowledged these problems both Max Townshend and Rick did admit this does happen. Because, physics. Kind of silly when people try and deny physics. (See: using just one sub.)
What I was missing though, and what engineer Max points out, is that yes you do lose a tiny amount to that but you gain something much more valuable- a huge reduction in ringing.
Ringing is the term for when the whole system is set vibrating and continues to vibrate long after the transient signal that started it all. Ringing is why we want speaker cabinets to be extremely solid and inert. But then we put them on a floor that is anything but. Then we make it worse by using spikes to couple the speakers to the floor.
As we already know the idea of spikes as diodes and vibration being a one-way street is unfounded. Vibrations go both ways. Once the floor starts vibrating it sends those vibrations right back up through the loudspeaker cabinet to the driver.
At least this is the theory. When it comes to stuff like this I'm pretty agnostic. Too many wonderful theories just don't seem to pan out. My grandmother was from Missouri, the "show me" state, so its in my blood. So I tend to say, nice story. Show me.
Not any springs will do. They do need to be sized for the weight of the component. Its kind of like what John is saying above, there's always going to be a resonant frequency and you want it to be very low ideally according to Townshend around 2Hz.
I still was skeptical. It just seems a speaker on springs, when the cone moves one way the whole loudspeaker is going to move the other way, and there goes your dynamics and transients.
But unlike the few others who never acknowledged these problems both Max Townshend and Rick did admit this does happen. Because, physics. Kind of silly when people try and deny physics. (See: using just one sub.)
What I was missing though, and what engineer Max points out, is that yes you do lose a tiny amount to that but you gain something much more valuable- a huge reduction in ringing.
Ringing is the term for when the whole system is set vibrating and continues to vibrate long after the transient signal that started it all. Ringing is why we want speaker cabinets to be extremely solid and inert. But then we put them on a floor that is anything but. Then we make it worse by using spikes to couple the speakers to the floor.
As we already know the idea of spikes as diodes and vibration being a one-way street is unfounded. Vibrations go both ways. Once the floor starts vibrating it sends those vibrations right back up through the loudspeaker cabinet to the driver.
At least this is the theory. When it comes to stuff like this I'm pretty agnostic. Too many wonderful theories just don't seem to pan out. My grandmother was from Missouri, the "show me" state, so its in my blood. So I tend to say, nice story. Show me.